(VOVworld) – The world community reacted positively to news that the US Congress on Thursday approved a budget bill to reopen closed government agencies and extend the borrowing authority of the Treasury Department. 

National Park workers remove a barricade at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial as it reopens to the public in Washington October 17, 2013. (Photo: Reuters)

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde hailed the vote to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying welcomed the resolution of the US debt ceiling deadlock, saying it "not only serves the United States’s own interests but also contributes to world economic stability."

The temporary budget bill approved by Congress will bring hundreds of thousands of federal workers back to work. The 16-day partial government shutdown left 2 million workers furloughed. Credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s estimates that the shutdown took 24 billion USD out of the US economy and will reduce its fourth-quarter GDP. The forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers put the damage at about 12 billion USD.